BOSTON RESTAURANT INSPIRES DEVOTION DESPITE ITS SETTING

By FOX BUTTERFIELD, Special to the New York Times

Published: January 8, 1986

BOSTON, Jan. 7—
It would be hard to conceive of a less propitious setting for an elegant restaurant. The exterior of the building is drab gray brick, suggesting an old factory. Around the corner is the Combat Zone, an infamous strip of adult bookstores and bars. The restaurant's location, on the edge of the finanicial district in a maze of old twisting streets, makes it almost impossible for drivers to find.

As if that was not enough, the escalator to the restaurant runs past a floor of fast-food establishments in a shopping arcade where the fragrance of McDonald's mixes with Emperor Egg Roll.

Despite these handicaps, more and more gastronomically minded Bostonians have been taking that escalator to Le Marquis de Lafayette since it opened last spring in the Lafayette Hotel.

It is one of several pleasant hotel restaurants to open in Boston in the last few years, transforming the culinary landscape of a city that was long known as the home of the bean and the cod. And, arguably, Le Marquis may be the best of the lot. Certainly its food has produced an almost reverential clientele. ''I've been working in restaurants all my life,'' said Pietro Valentini, the Italian-born maitre d'hotel, ''but I've never seen such a reaction.''

The architect of this triumph is Louis Outhier, who runs L'Oasis in a renovated villa in the village of La Napoule near Cannes. Since 1969, it has received a three-star rating from the Michelin guide. A celebrity in France, Mr. Outhier trained under Fernand Point at the same time as two other well-known chefs, Jean Troisgros and Paul Bocuse.

Mr. Outhier was brought to Boston to design and supervise the restaurant by Swissotel, a hotel chain formed by Swissair and Nestle S.A. in 1980. The Lafayette was built by the Intercontinental Hotels Corporation, but it withdrew at the last moment.

Swissotel, wanting to expand, stepped into the breach and decided it needed a stellar attraction.

''It was absolutely critical for us to have something that everybody in Boston wanted to come to,'' said Max Friedli, the hotel's public-relations manager and a former ski instructor at St. Moritz. Mr. Outhier, who had already directed restaurants in hotels in London; Singapore; Bangkok, Thailand, and Osaka, Japan, agreed to make his first foray in the United States in Boston.

He began by selecting the restaurant's luxurious appointments: Waterford crystal chandeliers, padded gray shantung walls, prints of hunting scenes and well-spaced tables set with crisp cream linens. The style is supposed to be American Federal, ''that period in America of Jefferson when France was in fashion,'' Mr. Friedli said.

Mr. Outhier, a trim, courtly man with the manner of a diplomat, also supervised the creation of the menu and supplied the senior kitchen staff from his restaurant in France.

A recent meal began with a complimentary single clam ravioli, spiced with oregano and served with braised, shredded cabbage. There followed another appetizer, l'oeuf au caviar, a shirred egg in a filigreed silver egg cup, served in its own shell and crowned with a white vodka cream sauce lavishly sprinkled with shiny beads of beluga caviar.

The salad was a delicately arranged composite of pencil-thin asparagus set on a bed of radicchio, Belgian endive, tiny avocado wedges and pinhead enoki mushrooms. A hollandaise dressed the asparagus, while a light vinaigrette was on the greens below.

A small poached halibut, with minced carrots and zucchini forming its backbone, arrived in a pool of reduced vegetable and wine sauce. A brochette of grilled langoustines was served on a bed of steamed leeks and flavored with a light oyster sauce. The fresh fois gras, rosy and moist and flavored with fresh ginger, was garnished with a slice of fresh mango.

Mr. Outhier, who visits Boston at least four times a year and prepares new seasonal menus, said in a recent interview that he had expected to have problems with the ingredients available in the United States.

''But I was really surprised - 95 percent of what we need we have found in the United States,'' he said. The exceptions are a few cheeses, some fish and a selection of wines for cooking and drinking, which he still flies in from France.

For dessert, the pastry chef, Alain Teillet, who has worked with Mr. Outhier for five years, prepares a trolley laden with at least 15 confections. Atop the cart is the dark brown figure of a leaping, horned stag, a literal chocolate moose fashioned by Mr. Teillet.

''A lot of people think it is wood, but we have to put it back in the refrigerator between meals,'' Mr. Valentini said.

One of the problems facing the hotel, in addition to its proximity to the Combat Zone, is that it was built on top of a two-story shopping arcade that has not drawn the upscale stores its developers sought. This juxtaposition has further confused some Bostonians about the hotel.

''When people come up the escalator or get off the elevator in our lobby, they always say, 'My goodness, I had no idea,' '' Mr. Friedli said.

But Dolores Morant, the owner of an arcade shop that sells leather goods and costume jewelry, is grateful for its presence.

''These businessmen come down from the hotel after they've had a great meal and they're in a good mood,'' Miss Morant said. ''They come in and decide they don't like their old suitcase or briefcase, so they buy a new one, $300 a pop. They make me throw the old ones away. They are our best customers.''

But Miss Morant has never been to the hotel. ''Do you think they'd have anything for me up there?'' she said.